The present invention relates generally to color separating systems, and in particular to a method and an apparatus for separating the colors of an original print painted with a number of predetermined colors. More particularly, the invention relates to a method and an apparatus for separating the colors using probability and statistical data handling techniques for eliminating errors arising from the ambiguous color spectral information.
In a prior art color separator, the spectral information of a color is spectroscopically separated into a number of predetermined spectral components and compared with a set of reference values to determine the degree of similarity therebetween. However, when the original color print is painted by color samples prepared by artisans, there is a certain degree of irregularities in the thickness of color print, uneven quantities of compositions in each color sample and possible color overlapping in the print. This would result in ambiguity in the tint, hue and brightness information, and as a result the separator tends to recognize erroneously when encountered with such ambiguous colors.